The Wedding of Darcy Lewis
by ello.cheeky
Summary: Set in the middle of the epic battle of the Avengers with themes and dialogue from The Wedding of River Song. Please let me know what you think. NEW The Return of Loki.
1. The Wedding

**I own nothing other than an unhealthy obsession with Thor and Doctor Who fandoms!**

"Loki please don't make me do this." Darcy's voiced cracked through her tears. The world was dying and only his demise would suffice the cruelty of fate. There had been a text, as old as time which promised the end of the world by the hand of one once hated and that his fate would be sealed by those he loved.

"Darcy I have to die." It wasn't news. All of the nine Realms had grown up with variations of that ancient tale. Only recently, through his spat with his brother, his fall to Earth and in his final moments of redemption and finally the beginning of Ragnarok had he managed to piece together that it was meant for him. He had unwittingly started it through his anger, it had fed off him like a leech until it was a second being capable of a level of evil Loki could barely imagine.

The Avengers had forgiven him when he agreed to assist in any way he could. Unfortunately that meant he would have to die. Only with his death could this mascot of all things dark be destroyed. However the cruellest twist of the knife was that it would have to be Darcy who performed the deed.

"We were going to do so much." Darcy was past caring about what she looked like. She, Loki and the Avengers were standing in the rubble and carnage that was once 5th Avenue, New York. Her clothes were filthy and torn, the heroes were bloodied and injured and all were waiting on her decision, could she save the world or couldn't she? It was clichéd, like something from a bad chick flick or cheesy action movie. Before now her only responsibility was paying her rent on time and keeping her apartment clean.

It was a hollowing, decaying feeling in the very core of her being that knew she would have to kill him, with his own blade of course. She felt dead, worse than dead, even zombies had more reason to live than this.

"Please let me fix this."

"There is nothing you can do love." Loki was beginning to lose his nerve, he wanted to look death in the face and die with the honour he had lacked in life. If he was going to die by the hand of anyone, it would be the hand of the woman who showed him how to live.

"Stark helped me send out a message throughout the nine realms. Loki is dying; please, please help. You've decided the universe is better off without you but the universe doesn't agree." Darcy was refusing to give up hope. If there was one thing that could help her it was hope.

"That wouldn't mean anything to anyone." Throughout all his years he had never thought highly of himself. He knew he was powerful and clever but he was never popular or much-liked. He doubted any of the Avenger's were there because in order to say goodbye to him, rather the need to follow Thor.

"You're wrong! All that interference and satellite bullshit that's been on the news, it's been a cover. The universe if full of voices saying 'Yes of course we'll help'. You think after all your time and everything you've done, when you needed help you'd have to do more than ask?." Her eyes were pleading, begging. She didn't care about how she looked. The Avengers shifted, Captain America looked like his heart was about to break, Thor could barely keep his eyes on the scene unfurling in front of him.

"No one can help me."

"I can't let you die."

"Darcy I-"

"SHUT UP!" Darcy's sudden outburst caught everyone's attention, Loki looked her straight in the eye, "I can't let you die without knowing you are loved. By so many and so much." She let her tears slow and regained her composure, "and by no one more than me."

"Darcy; you and I we know what this means. We are the core of an explosion that will engulf the entire world. Billions upon billions will suffer and die all because of this."

"I'll suffer, if I have to kill you."

"More than every living thing in the universe?"

She looked at him as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. To her of course, it was.

"Yes."

Loki wiped the tears from her face, pulled her close and for a brief moment forgot everything in her simple embrace. He looked her over; scruffy jeans, ripped Sonic Youth shirt and old floral boots. This silly girl who had enticed him and overwhelmed him over a year ago, standing in front of him doing everything in her limited mortal power to fend off the unstoppable and didn't care that it was an impossible task to uptake.

"Brother tear a strip off my cloak, Darcy take one end and wrap it around your wrist. We're in the middle of a combat zone so we'll have to do the quick version of this; Thor repeat after me 'I consent and gladly give'"

"To what?" Thor knew what the words meant, but didn't know why his brother was about to say them.

"Just say it, please." Loki couldn't waste another second, if he was to die, he would die a happy man.

"I consent and gladly give."

"Stark you need to say it too; guardian of the bride." Darcy looked at him with joy and bliss in her eyes; two things she thought she would never feel again.

"I consent and gladly give."

"Now Darcy I'm going to whisper something in your ear and must never repeat it but always remember it," leaning into the ear of his new bride he whispered something so faint no one else could of possibly heard it. Darcy physically swelled. "I just told you my most ancient and sacred name. There you go Mrs Laufeyson. You're the woman who married me." She beamed, "And wife, I have a request, this world is dying and it's my fault and I can't bare it another day. Please help me." Damn his pride. She was his and that was all that mattered now. He had to die but that didn't mean he couldn't smile at his wife, and for her to smile back at him. Finally he felt acceptance, and more beautifully, contentment of life. "There isn't another way."

She looked into the specks of blue in his ridiculously green eyes.

"Then you may kiss the bride."

"I'll make it a good one."

"Oh you better."

As far as kisses went this one was perfect. She had never imagined getting married looking like a hobo, or marrying a Norse God, or in fact that she would stop the end of the world. He pulled away, planting a soft kiss on her forehead.

"You are forgiven; always and completely forgiven." As Darcy had been preoccupied sealing the deal, Loki had placed his staff in her hand, keeping firm hold of her before plunging the blade into his own chest.

Darcy screamed.

Thor let out a roar more fitting to a wounded animal.

"I could never let you live with the guilt." Loki fell onto the rubble. Darcy clutched at his body, Thor was on his knees, his giant shoulders heaving with his sobs.

There was a great burst of light and when it faded everything looked somehow better. The world was still carnage but the gleam of hope was visible on every fallen brick, every dirty face. It was almost like a light from within everything was shining. And in the midst of it all was a newly widowed bride, her dead husband, his grieving brother and the Earth's mightiest heroes; all stunned and awed at the sacrifice their enemy and rival had made in order to save the realm he probably cared about the least.

Loki was smiling when he died.

_1 year later_

In honour of his dead brother Thor cared for Darcy as if she was his own blood. She lived with him and Jane, continued her work with S.H.I.E.L.D and lived quietly and contently.

"I still dream of him you know." Thor would always want to talk of Loki, and even if it pained Darcy to hear it she would never stop him.

"So do I, all the time."

"Darcy what did he really whisper in your ear?"

She was caught off-guard. Thor was usually passive and polite when discussing Loki's last moments. Damn him, he knew.

"I know all the names of Loki in all the languages in all the realms; we were princes we had to know so to me or anyone who reads into it there is no mystery behind his old names." He literally got on his knees and clasped her hands in his massive paws to plead at her feet. "Please Darcy, tell me this."

"Rule one. Loki lies."

"Of course he does he's the prince of lies."

"Well so do I, had to otherwise all hell would literally have broken loose. That mischievous bastard is always one step ahead of everyone isn't he?" She smiled despite herself, "The Loki we saw in New York was a copy, one of his clones. The real original Loki is still alive and very well."

Thor's puppy eyes welled with tears before he dragged her into a hug so tight she could barely breath.

"So what did he say to you?"

"He told me to wait. I don't know how long for but I will. In my dreams he's been sending me hints about when he can come back but he's worried everything will end again. All he needs is time."

"You're certain?"

"Hells yeah, I'm his wife after all."


	2. The Return

The nights had been the hardest.

Darcy had become so accustomed to having Loki near as her own personal cooling body-pillow, without him she would wake in the middle of the night, bedsheets sweaty and tangled around her like snakes. When she could eventually sleep for a full night her dreams drifted towards the day he left. Of course he hadn't wanted to. He'd explained all that he could so she wouldn't be in danger but it didn't make the waiting any more fun.

It had been three years since the Avengers had saved the world and Darcy was still living with Thor and Jane, mostly because Thor couldn't bear if Loki came back and he wasn't there to beg his forgiveness. Her days were filled with S.H.I.E.L.D and reruns of Man V Food. Thor and Jane refused to let her leave their apartment, even when he proposed to her with an ancient sword and there was a serious danger of third wheel-dom. After an outdoor shotgun wedding where Tony Stark insisted on hiring the whole of Central Park "for some privacy" followed quite a hastened baby shower. On a particularly non-eventful Tuesday, little Kenneth Samuel Odinson came screaming into the world.

The labour has been fairly easy as far as pushing a melon out of a canal the size of a tube of Smarties can be.

Apparently on Asgard men weren't accustomed to seeing the full miracle, however Thor played the doting husband. He mopped Jane's brow, took her abuse and when it was all over he cut the cord and brought her flowers. All the while Darcy held hands, called relatives and found a guy who made a bouquet of balloons.

Seeing the newest member of their odd little brood Darcy was filled with more joy than she'd had in who knows how long. This little baby who had so much potential and a completely clean slate, who could do anything and be anyone he wanted. The realisation almost reduced Darcy to tears. As she held this perfect infant it dawned on her of how, slowly but surely, her hope for Loki's return had ebbed away. It had been nearly five years, not that she remembered the exact date what with the impending apocalypse preoccupying her timekeeping. She missed him so much it ached. However for this child she would be strong. She was going to be needed as much as his parents in their bizarre living arrangements and Darcy would be damned if he ever went wanting.

After only two months of being on this planet the apartment was practically covered with pictures of Kenny, courtesy of Thor's newfound love of his camera, as well as a plethora of presents from almost everyone they knew, including a Tiffany's rattle from Tony and first edition Beatrix Potter books from Fury. Thor and Jane had taken a long weekend to introduce the little one to her parents up in Maine leaving Darcy to deal with the mess of crap that gets forgotten when a new baby comes home. As well as laundry that consisted mostly of baby-grows and a shitload of weird baby food, some of which she and Thor had tried one night when Survivor wasn't on, there was vacuuming and general organising to do. With all the time off she'd taken her workload was piling up, but now that Earth was seemingly safe, unless you believe what you hear on Fox News, working for S.H.I.E.L.D had lost a lot of its' original allure. Luckily the occasional drunken visit from Tony in his Iron Man suit was totally worth the paperwork.

So Darcy settled into her cleaning routine, organising shit that would get itself lost or fucked up about an hour after the Swiss Family Odinsons got home. Oh well, four whole days of clean peace was nothing to be sniffed at.

Her Sherlock box set that needed breaking in and a tub of Ben & Jerry's that wasn't going to eat itself. Somehow she'd become one of those annoying people with no lives. She had plenty of friends at S.H.I.E.L.D and she wasn't unpopular. In all honestly she felt a bit of a tit for waiting for so damn long when it looked like Loki clearly wasn't going to appear any time soon. The dreams he sent her with clues of his whereabouts had basically stopped with the exception of the odd flash of scenery which were about as useful as condoms to the Pope. Whenever she explained them to Thor he's tell her everything he knew about where they could be but eventually they became too sporadic to keep track.

She had dozed off somewhere between Sherlock and John eye-fucking and them denying their undying man-love.

It was stupidly late, a quick change of clothes, some juice and bedtime was needed, _And tomorrow I'll make an effort to be sociable._ So she pulled out some old boxers and _that_ Sonic Youth t-shirt and went back through the living room to pick up her iPod. It took a few second to realise she wasn't alone.

In the moments she drank him in, the _real_ him, that gaping void that had grown inside her, that had poisoned her thoughts like a parasite and made her question everything was instead filled with an inexplicable joy.

He was sitting on the very edge of Thor's Laz-E-Boy, looking ragged and drawn and ready to pounce in he needed to. He wore a dirty green tunic and black boots and breeches. However he had managed to get to Earth it clearly hadn't been an easy trip.

Darcy was torn between a sudden urge to vomit and an even more powerful need to hold him. She chose the latter. They crashed together, arms holding tight and hands grabbing with no intention of letting go. Loki fell to the floor on his knees and held Darcy in his lap while she cried into his neck with a smile on her face, administering the odd kiss on whatever part of his anatomy was closest. He in return turned her face to meet his and kissed her with all the love and energy he clearly didn't have at that moment. They didn't say a word to each other for a good hour; instead both were just content sitting there in a heap on the floor.

Eventually she moved back only slightly to get a proper look at him. Around his mouth were small scars dotted around his lips. One of his eyes had a hazy milky glaze over it.

"I returned to Asgard after running around the realms for two years. Odin himself passed the sentence on me. He took some enchanted thread and sewed my mouth shut and for a year I was shown as a spectacle in the Great Hall. At least he had the gall to do the deed himself." Loki told his tale slowly, as if it had been rehearsed in his mind a hundred times, "I was then handed over to Skadi; a Jötunn goddess. She bound me to a rock and tied a snake above my face whose poison eventually blinded me. That was for two more years. I was released about a week or two ago, regaining my strength before coming through the Bifrost."

Darcy cupped his face in an air of comfort and kissed each tiny scar and finally his blinded eye. Even when he told her they would eventually all heal she fussed and soothed him. When he was done telling of his woes Darcy explained why their reunion had taken place in the middle of an army of baby toys. She showed him pictures, how Kenny had gotten his mother's dark hair and his father's blue eyes and of Thor's bravery in the delivery room. Loki stopped at one of Thor holding his son for the first time and smiled so hard it almost broke Darcy's heart.

He took advantage of the empty apartment and literally jumped into the shower, exclaiming how he had missed it almost as much as he had missed Darcy. Realising just how exhausted they were they ended up in bed ready to submit to sleep.

Well, not exhausted enough that they didn't indulge in the third favourite thing Loki had missed being in Asgard.

They wrestled and swayed, taking out all the misery they had been made to feel over the past five years through the clawing of backs and the biting of collar bones, the pulling of hair and hands grabbing too hard and leaving red marks in their wake. Neither of them cared. This had been needed for so long, a combined power they had together. They had saved the world, they could do anything. When their combined release came they propelled each other further into the abyss until there was nothing left.

In the wake of their passions Darcy commented that he had a lot of birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine's Day's to make up for. He rolled her into the nook of his shoulder instead of telling her outright to shut up.

After that, the nights weren't so hard any more.


End file.
